During the Civil War it was common for the wealthy to avoid military service by paying someone else to take their place when they were drafted.

Al’s like some pre-war abolitionist preaching on the sins of slavery but sending a poverty stricken replacement to do battle in his stead.

But I think the whole “global warming” movement is just one of those imaginary hobgoblins that Mencken wrote about, designed to frighten us into giving power to a select few who promise that they are impoverishing us for our own good. They’re like the Hawaiian missionaries who came to do good and did very well indeed. Look for any plans for dealing with global warming to primarily enrich the proponents.

Your obsession with “class warfare” is equally irrational. Any conscious reader of this blog has long ago noted that what you are really talking about is class envy, that you believe you deserve something, indeed, are entitled to something, that you have not earned and deeply resent the people who have earned it and won’t give it to you simply because you demand it. You seem completely consumed and obsessed with the inequality of human endeavor and yet so far as we can tell have made no effort beyond whining and complaining about your circumstance, other than to launch personal attacks on those of us here who do not share your pathetic condition or your visions of doom and gloom.

I am sincere in my suggestion that you seek some help. You appear to be still a young man. If you continue to rely upon false premises to rationalize your dark attitude and rigid behavior, you are in for a very long and unhappy life of circular reasoning and irrational conclusions, all of which is everywhere evident in your many posts on this blog. You can’t get ahead in the world, Mark, by always just trying to get even with it. Get some help.

As for your refusal to disavow Jay’s merciless “class warfare” cruelty towards the uber-rich in this post, I’m incredibly disappointed. Last week, when you scolded the left for “class warfare” rhetoric based on their attempts to address with mere discussion the growing chasm between rich and poor in this country, I thought you were a true believer….a loyal foot soldier dedicated not only to the cause of consolidating global wealth into as few of pockets as possible, but in pistol-whipping anybody who dares to speak ill of said trend. For you to allow Jay’s reckless and hostile words against the rich to go unpunished has me questioning your commitment to the cause. I expected better of you, Eracus. So did the Bemidji Free People’s Militia.

You are apparently incapable of distinguishing between real life and Hollywood science-fiction, Mark. Because whether it was Charleton Heston in 1974 or Al Gore in 2006, it’s still the same movie. That their similarity obviously eludes you only more confirms your delusional state.

The same goes for Jay’s discussion of the hypocrisy of the usual limosine liberals currently hustling the coffers of the global warming cult. You are perceiving a contradiction that does not exist, which again is only more proof of your delusional state.

Something is wrong. Please get some help.

It's interesting to watch the true believers flock here to try to "tip" me (that is downright funny, incidentally) or shout me down (and banned permanently) over the global warming issues I have been posting about. The…

Yes, you’ve cleverly turned the global scientific consensus of our time on its head by deploying a single article from Time magazine representative of the “hysteria” among scientists regarding the “global cooling” phenomenon of 1974. What perplexes me is that the 1973 motion picture “Soylent Green” depicted an overpopulated globe basking in a perpetual state of heat from the “greenhouse effect”. Either the “real” scientists of the era were all confined to the writing and production crew of “Soylent Green”, or the right is once again trying to rewrite history with the inference that the global cooling premise of 1974 matched the level of nearly unanimous concern/fear in the scientific community that global warming does today.

And I must say I’m disappointed in you, Eracus. Just last week, you scolded the political left for playing “class warfare”, a buzzword that in Republican-speak, translates to mere discussion of the growing chasm between rich and poor in this country. But thus far, you’ve given Jay Reding a total get-out-of-jail-free card for the disgusting “class warfare” diatribe that drives this post. I’ll continue to patiently await your verbal smackdown of his appalling display of class envy and persecution of the long-suffering uber-rich.

Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest. Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.” –from TIME magazine, Monday, Jun. 24, 1974

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,944914,00.html

You sort of lost me there. How exactly does a free market recduce carbon emissions? I would have thought that the most *efficient* way of reducing those emissions would be not to emit any carbon mono- and dioxid, whatsoever, by stopping all cars, factories, planes, etc. Not that that would be such a bright idea, but I am just making the obvious point.

Relying on the free market to reduce anything is not a feasable idea. On the contrary. By definition (or at least, by the definition Jay applies), a free market is the way to increase production at the best cost/win rate in terms of money. The free market’s driving principle is not to spend any money that can be avoided spending. In a free market, no money will be spent voluntarily on things that do not contribute to increasing profits. It is only government and community restrictions that will help introduce such non-profitable things as decreasing carbon emissions.

J.

http://www.treesftf.org/involved/certificate.htm

“A typical jet emits approximately 1 pound of CO2 for every passenger-mile it flies. Over 2000 miles (3200 km), the plane emits one ton of carbon dioxide per passenger.

“A roundtrip from New York to Los Angeles creates about 3 tons of carbon dioxide per passenger…

“Each tree planted in the humid tropics absorbs 50 pounds (22 kg) of carbon dioxide every year for at least 40 years – each tree will absorb 1 ton of CO2 over its lifetime!

“Because communities in developing countries join our tree planting program voluntarily to protect their soil, groundwater, and way of life, we are able to plant beneficial trees at a total cost of about ten cents ($.10) per tree.”

So you can fly cross country and pay only 30 cents, enough to plant three trees that over their lifetime will absorb your share of the CO2 generated by that flight. Compared to the total cost of the flight this is insignificant and is something that anyone can afford, if they can afford to fly at all.

Of course, unlike those oh-so-serious Shrubbery Planting Carbon-Offsetters, our joke business could substantiate its claims by pointing to actual events (Krakatoa, etc.).